The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

By now the party had suffered a number of notable defections over this issue. Paddy Devlin had been expelled in 1977 because he argued that the party was moving away from socialism. Austin Currie resigned in 1979 to fight the Fermanagh/South Tyrone Westminster seat as an independent SDLP candidate, but lost. He subsequently made his political career in the south. He joined the Fine Gael party, eventually becoming a junior minister in the ‘rainbow coalition’ Government formed in 1995. Apart from the attention of politics, Currie had other personal reasons for leaving the north. Several attacks on his home included one in which a UVF raiding party missed him and vented their spleen by carving the initials UVF on his wife’s breasts.